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Commitment

Control

Challenge

Confidence

Mental Toughness is a mindset which determines, in some part, how you perform when exposed to stressors, pressure and challenge. It can play a significant role in determining how you manage stress as well as being a key factor in enabling you to perform to the peak of your abilities.Scroll down to find out more about Mental Toughness or click on one of the service menus below.

The Mental Toughness coaching we offer is designed for Executive and teachers at all levels. You set the agenda - with the benefit of your MTQ48 results to help identify areas for development. Your coach uses active listening and various specialised questioning techniques to help you set your goals and work towards achieving.

"Mental Toughness for Positive Teacher Identity" is a workshop that introduces key concepts and explores your own mental toughness in the context of your current teaching role. Participants complete an MTQ48 Mental Toughness measure and work through the development report to create your own action plan for change.

"U Can Achieve" is a Mental Toughness Program for high school students. Equip your students to improve their own mental toughness and build the benchmark data to plan your school's own wellbeing strategies. Staff Wellbeing Teams are trained in the implementation. Follow the below link to make an enquiry.

Celebrity Teacher is an accredited and licensed user of the MTQ48 Psychometric Measure. Completing the MTQ48 measures you against the four scales of Mental Toughness (Commitment, Control, Challenge, Confidence) and sets out development and coaching options.

What is Mental Toughness?

We are subject to stressors and pressure almost every minute of the day. It is how we respond to stress and pressure that matters – and we mostly do it differently to one another. We know that we can place two teachers in an apparently stressful environment and that one may “sink” while the other may “thrive”. The difference can be explained by Mental Toughness and it can be developed. This explains how individuals develop resilience and an inner drive to succeed.

Mental Toughness is a personality trait which determines, in some part, how individuals perform when exposed to stressors, pressure and challenge… irrespective of the prevailing situation.

(Clough and Strycharczyk 2011)

Mental Toughness has its origins in health psychology. It draws upon resilience and hardiness research, as well as drawing from practitioners in people development and sports coaching. The developers of Mental Toughness have spent a number of years implementing their programs in schools across the United Kingdom.

In this way, it is the perfect next step from Celebrity Teacher’s Introductory Workshop: Teacher Resilience & Wellbeing.

Through working with Celebrity Teacher, you will develop skills and aptitude in the four Cs of Mental Toughness:

1. Commitment – tenacity, ‘stick-ability’

2. Control – self-worth, self-efficacy in both life-control and emotional control.

The 4 Cs Model

This 'Four Cs model of Mental Toughness' has been developed at the University of Hull (UK) under the direction of Dr Peter Clough.

We don’t believe that mental sensitivity is weakness, we believe it carries a burden of having to feel and react to all stressors and dynamic interplays that they experience in a day. However, on the flip side – people with too much of mental toughness can cause problems too.

Individuals need the right level of MT for the situation. Exposure to excess pressure doesn’t toughen – it often weakens, So, Celebrity Teacher is focused on building supportive school environments that are focused on wellbeing contributing to success.

Mental Toughness has been developed through continuous research and analysis of evidence. To read more about the evidence base for this model, click here.

Why is Mental Toughness important?

Studies show that there is a clear, consistent and positive relationship between an individual’s mental toughness and their:

-WellbeingDeal better with stress and pressure; sleep better; increased resilience against mental health issues; ability to relax after the most challenging days; perceive much less bullying behaviour and less likely to consciously adopt bullying behaviour.

+ Openness to change & transitionDeal better with new settings (schools, jobs, roles), new programs and curricula, new managers/colleagues/students, new experiences and opportunities.

+ Completion on time & on target/ reduced drop-outMore ‘stick-ability’ to complete tasks; better project management; take setbacks and change in their stride; will respond to failure by saying: “I can do better”.

+ Social mobility & motivation

How is Mental Toughness useful?

We can…

• Assess an individual’s capacity to deal with stressful situations

• Understand why one person succeeds where another struggles

• Develop approaches to help schools and individuals perform under pressure and respond positively to challenge

• Make better decisions about people and what they can do.

Can Mental Toughness be measured?

Celebrity Teacher is an accredited and licensed user of the MTQ48 Psychometric Measure. This self-report questionnaire exceeds the acceptable validity score (measures what it claims to measure) and the reliability of the overall instrument is very good. For more information on the MTQ48's validity and reliability, follow this link.

Completing the MTQ48 measures you against the four scales (Commitment, Control, Challenge, Confidence).

All participants in our Mental Toughness for Teacher Identity Workshop are given a login and password to complete the MTQ48 measure online prior to the workshop. It takes 7-10 minutes to complete. During the workshop you will receive a report with your results and be given information on how to read it, interpret the results and use it to guide further development work. All reports are written in clear and simple language.

The workshop provides general information on how to understand your results and make meaning from your scores in your teaching context. This is explored through group coaching activities. More comprehensive individual feedback and development work is available through additional coaching packages from Celebrity Teacher.

Time is provided during the workshop for the participant to read their report thoroughly and think about what it says. It is OK to challenge the results as participants consider evidence from their teaching or outside life that supports or contradicts the results.

We also offer a MTQ48 test for those who participate in our Mental Toughness Coaching package, for both teachers and School Executives. In the coaching package the results from the MTQ48 are used to inform the areas you would like to develop through your coaching program.